My first care, then, must be to make an attempt to reduce the swelling and bind up the wound with some pain-allaying and healing substance, and here again my lack of knowledge of woodcraft and forest resources made me pitiably hopeless. I tried to remember any scraps of conversation or any incidents which I had heard or seen in the woods and which might help me, and at last I did succeed in bringing to mind two instances in which my guides had made use of nature’s remedies in curing wounds. On one occasion Joe had applied bear’s grease to a cut upon his hand, and at another time he had gathered some herbs as we passed through a little glade and to my questions had replied that it was arnica and was used in curing bruises and sprains.
I had no bear’s grease and I did not know if arnica was found in the neighborhood, but I decided that the wound must be cleansed and bandaged, at any rate, and that the sooner it was done the better, for the numbness was now passing off and the leg was commencing to pain again.
Carefully I unrolled the shirt, and as I exposed the limb I grew sick at the sight, for leg and ankle were black with congested blood, terribly swollen and misshapen, and with the flesh and skin deeply torn and cut. I could not tell whether it was dislocated or broken; although when I felt of it and moved it carefully with my hand it seemed so loose and caused me such agony that I feared the worst.
It was a long, tedious, and torturing operation to bathe the foot and ankle, wash out the cuts, and bind up the limb anew, but at last it was accomplished, and with sticks bound about it as splints to protect it, I determined to hobble about and try to discover some arnica plants before I became unable to move.
By means of a crutch I could travel fairly easily over the more open ground near the lake, and I made my way slowly and painfully toward a little open spot I had noticed a few days before. Here rank weeds and plants grew in abundance, and after searching for some time I discovered a clump of herbs which I felt sure were the same as those I had seen Joe gather.
While searching for the arnica I had wandered to the farther side of the glade, and as I glanced about to get my bearings my eyes fell upon a well-marked opening or trail leading into the woods close at hand. Filled with wonder at this, for I knew that the trail must have been made by human hands, I examined it intently. Yes, there could be no doubt of it. There were lichen-covered stumps showing the ax-marks and I realized that by chance I had stumbled upon an old wood road. Thrilled with excitement and almost forgetting the pain in my injured leg, I hobbled forward along the old road, for I knew that it must lead to some definite goal.
I was too overcome with my discovery to think that the road might lead for miles through the woods and that in my injured and weakened condition I was running a grave risk in following it away from my camp, and it was fortunate for me that the end came so quickly.
Hardly had I hobbled forward for a dozen rods along the road when a turn ahead disclosed a broad, sunlit clearing and in its center a house!
For an instant I was so utterly dumfounded that I could scarce believe my eyes, for to find a human dwelling here in the forest and within a few rods of my own camp seemed absolutely incredible. But there it stood, a tiny log cabin basking in the sunshine of the clearing, and with a glad shout, and quite forgetting my injured leg, I hurried forward as fast as my condition enabled me.
No voice replied to my cry, and as I reached the open doorway I realized that the hut had been long deserted and my heart sank. Across the floor dead leaves had drifted ankle-deep; moss grew upon the threshold; lichens covered the walls; sunlight streamed through many a hole and crevice in the roof, and a squirrel scampered into the fireplace and up the chimney as I stepped within the door. Along one side of the cabin extended a rude bunk, a table of slabs stood near the open fireplace, some moldy, cobwebbed fragments of clothing hung from pegs driven in the walls, a rusty iron pot stood upside down beside the hearth, and a small grindstone was propped against one wall.